About Dr. Max
Dr. Max Dean Goldstein, M.D.
Board Certified Family Medicine Physician
I was born and raised in Santa Monica, California, and went to Bowdoin College in Brunswick Maine where I obtained a bachelors in Biochemistry and Romance Languages. Following college, I was awarded a Watson Fellowship and completed a year of long distance ocean swimming across international borders. For medical school, I graduated with honors from the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA, following which I completed a residency in Family Medicine at the Ventura County Medical Center, one of the oldest Family Medicine residency programs in the nation. And for the past 10 years, I have worked full time as a Family Medicine physician, caring for individuals across all ages. Think of me as your old-school family medicine doctor, who knows you and everybody in your family, but who has access to everything that modern medicine offers.
Location
Our clinic is located off Montana Avenue in Santa Monica, California, 90402
About the Medical Practice
The most important thing we can offer is the time and the bandwidth to listen. I have training in botanical medicine and functional medicine, and my goal is to get to the root cause of illness, and to use non-pharmaceutical measures as a priority. Did you know that there is essentially no difference in outcomes of children treated with antibiotics for ear infections compared to those that do not receive antibiotics? And yet 95% of children with middle ear infections are given antibiotics in the US.
But because I have the time to follow up with my patients, I can avoid overprescribing. So in my practice, if your kid has an ear infection, I’ll generally take a good look and have you follow up in a few days before sending you home with an antibiotic.
For adult medicine, I focus on disease prevention. The heart attack you had at the age of 60 started with cardiovascular disease in your 30’s. So I really focus on prevention of cardiovascular and neurodegenerative disease. I offer a functional and integrative medicine approach to chronic illness and encourage lifestyle modification, dietary changes, and addition of nutraceuticals for disease management AND reversal. I also provide and coordinate all of your health maintenance including cancer screenings, and I refer to and coordinate with a broad spectrum of specialists when needed.
Family Medicine
I understand that there are many definitions of a family, but in my practice I generally focus on the family unit as that of an adult(s) + children. I value my unique ability to practice both pediatric and adult medicine and believe that seeing the entire family as an interrelated unit offers the best healthcare. When coming into my practice, I generally ask that the entire family become patients. I offer complete healthcare privacy and do not share any medical information amongst family members unless you give permission.
I also recognize that a family unit may look differently, and if you have a chosen family that you want to bring into the practice as a unit, please let us know! We embrace it all.
Well visits and annual exams beginning at newborns
Sick visits for respiratory illness, rashes, skin infections…
Management of minor traumas including stitches
Management of dermatologic conditions such as acne and eczema
Asthma management
Sports physicals and medical clearances
Pediatric Medicine
LGBTQ Health
We can help you with anything you need related to PrEP and STI screening
Adult Medicine
Annual exams and health visits
Cancer screening and routine health maintenance
Management of chronic diseases such as diabetes, hypertension, heart failure
Management of dermatologic conditions
Broad procedural capacity for removal of lipomas, cysts and pre-cancerous skin lesions
LGBTQ health including management of PrEP
Women's health including contraception management, cervical and breast cancer screenings
Access to Dr. Max as a Physician
I limit the number of patients in my practice so that I stay more available when my patients need me" Same day in person or video/telemedicine consultations are always available, and we can usually schedule your physical within a week. Because accessibility is so good, I only open my schedule a month in advance. If I am out of the office for a few days, I accommodate telemedicine visits, and if I am out for more than a week, I will always have a physician’s assistant to cover the practice.
About Pediatric Vaccines
Two things can be true at the same time. The first is that vaccines are safe, effective and prevent illness. The second is that our current vaccination schedule can be safely modified for individual needs. So I tailor the vaccine schedule to each individual and their family circumstances.